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Americans Evacuated from Quarantined Ship in Japan; Attorney General Bill Barr Ordered Reexamination of Michael Flynn Case; Candidates Sharpen Attacks on Bernie Sanders; Michael Bloomberg Surges in Polls Despite Past Policies; Fighting Forces Civilians to Flee Homes in Idlib; Swarm Could Endanger Food Security of Millions. Aired 1-2a ET

Aired February 17, 2020 - 01:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[01:00:20]

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: And we're back.

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: We are.

ALLEN: Hello everyone. Welcome to viewers joining us around the world. I'm Natalie Allen.

HOLMES: She is. I'm Michael Holmes. And coming up right here on CNN NEWSROOM, Americans who've been trapped aboard back cruise ship for two weeks now headed back to the U.S.

ALLEN: Also, here early voting underway in the state of Nevada and his fellow candidates are taking aim at front runner Bernie Sanders.

HOLMES: And CNN goes inside Syria's Idlib province where the suffering and misery is unparalleled as civilians try to out-run a war.

ALLEN: Hello, everyone. Thanks again for joining us. Our top story comes from Yokohama, Japan. Right now more than 300 Americans are heading back to the U.S. after being quarantined on that cruise ship during the coronavirus outbreak.

HOLMES: They had two China planes took off from Tokyo just a few hours ago. One of them is headed to an Air Force Base in California, the other to Texas. But once they land, they are expected to start another 14 days of quarantine.

ALLEN: This after already spending almost two weeks in isolation on the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship remains docked in Yokohama with more than 350 confirmed cases of the virus from that ship alone.

HOLMES: Worldwide the number of infections now more than 71,000. The death toll has also jumped past 1700 globally after officials reported 105 new deaths in mainland China.

ALLEN: Let's get the latest from the region, our correspondents are with us now. Will Ripley in Yokohama, Kristie Lu Stout joins us from Hong Kong. Will, first to you, you are right there in Yokohama where the buses pulled up, where people disembarked this ship even though they have a ways to go, that had to be quiet a moment for them.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was, but it was a moment that was slow coming, Natalie. I mean, these are people who have already spent nearly two weeks confined to their cramped cabins on the Diamond Princess cruise ship.

But the process of getting them from the ship to the plane and for the plane to actually take off, took nearly 10 hours even though the airport is actually just a 20 minute drive from here.

And so, there was a lot of frustration that was, you know, mounting throughout the evening. These are people who are pretty frazzled for a number of reasons.

One, they've had to deal with the mental anguish of worrying about their health onboard the ship for the last two weeks as the number of cases on board has continued to jump up nearly every single day over the weekend. You had one day, the jump of 67 cases, the next day, 70 cases. And then of course, there's also this daunting prospect of yet another 14 days at a U.S. military base.

But what the United States is doing is -- you know, the same as what other countries are doing that are now going to be repatriating their citizens.

Canada will be sending a plane in later this week to fly its citizens to a resort where they will ride out a 14-day quarantine.

In Australia, they'll be sending a flight. They'll be -- they'll be quarantined for 14 days at a mining camp -- accommodations at a mining camp. Nicer than it sounds, I think.

We also know that South Korea, Italy, other countries that are following suit as well, but there are still plenty of people who remain on that ship whose countries are not coming to their immediate rescue. They're all being throat swab for being tested for the novel coronavirus. And when they are allowed to get off the ship, it's really unclear what's going to happen to them.

It's also unclear what the situation will be for the remaining more than two dozen Americans who are being treated in Japanese hospitals here, and their family members who decided not to born -- to board the evacuation flights that were offered by the U.S. government.

We believe that they might have to put themselves up for additional two weeks here in Japan to prove to their -- to their countries, to the U.S. government and other countries that they are coronavirus free, before they're allowed to board their own commercial flights possible even on their own dime to get back home.

So, still a lot of questions that are unanswered, still a lot of people in limbo. But for the more than 300 Americans who were on those two charter

flights, we no one of them is expected to land in California in the next 90 minutes or so, which means very soon those people as kind of uncomfortable as this journey might have been for them, they will be back in their home country. They'll be back in a familiar place, maybe not necessarily their home state, not back to their lives, per se, but they'll be speaking with doctors that they can more easily communicate with. They'll be back on dry land and one step closer to eventually resuming their lives which have been on hold.

You know, by the time this whole thing is over, it's going to be about a month before they're be able to return.

[01:05:01]

ALLEN: All right, some of these people have jobs, they have families, they have pets. I mean, it is an unbelievable disruption in their lives. Will Ripley with the latest. Will, thank you.

HOLMES: Let's bring in Kristie Lu Stout now in Hong Kong. So, the numbers keep going up. Can we expect that to get worse before it gets better?

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the outbreak just keeps growing and growing, Michael. The coronavirus has infected now more than 71,000 people around the world. The global death toll has risen this day to 1770 with those 100 new deaths reported this morning from Hubei province which is of course where Wuhan is, the epicenter of the outbreak.

China's national health condition is set to release the numbers for all of China and all of these provinces at about 3:00 p.m. local time that is roughly an hour from now.

And this follows that spike in numbers last week after Hubei province changed and expanded the criteria in counting new coronavirus infections. And that also has prompted many to question just how accurate the data really is coming from mainland China.

Now, as the global death toll continues to grow, again, the vast majorities of those deaths are in mainland China, but outside the mainland, five people have died as a result of the outbreak, in Hong Kong, in the Philippines, in Japan, and also in France and Taiwan.

In fact, over the weekend, an 80-year-old Chinese tourist in Paris died in hospital. That was the first death confirmed from the coronavirus outside Asia.

And then on Sunday, a man in Taiwan, he was in his mid-60s, he became the first confirmed death in Taiwan. And he had no history of overseas travel -- no history of travel to mainland China.

On Saturday, we also heard from the chief of the World Health Organization who praised the way Beijing responded to the outbreak. You know, saying it is bought the world sometime, pointing to the example of limited local transmissions globally as proof that China's response is working.

China as you know has been criticize for lack of transparency and how, as David Culver and his team had been reporting, the late Doctor Li Wenliang was silenced early on when he was warning about a new SARS like illness.

China has (INAUDIBLE) and the WHO. And China also succeeded in blocking Taiwan's access to the human body and this could have real consequences as Taiwan reports its first death from the virus. Back to you.

HOLMES: All right, Kristie Lu Stout. Thanks so much for all your reporting there from Hong Kong.

Now, a little earlier I spoke with Laurie Garrett about all of this. She's a former senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, a Pulitzer prize-winning science author. She explained how authorities should have responded.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAURIE GARRETT, AUTHOR, THE COMING PLAGUE: I've been in so many epidemics now in my lifetime, so many, and I hear the same exact arguments every single time, with every single outbreak. It always starts off with somebody like myself or somebody in government is whistling an alarm and we get called chicken little, you're exaggerating, it's only 20 cases, it's only 10 cases, it's only in this group of people, it's not a big deal.

Well, the time to act is when it is only 20 cases, when it is only in a small group of people. If you wait until everybody agrees this is an epidemic, well, by then you've already failed to take the actions that could have save lives.

The constant problem for epidemic preparedness is that when there is no epidemic for a while, politicians cut the money. They say, hey, you know, we don't see a problem, why are we spending this many millions? You know, we've got potholes over here, we've got leaky pipes in the city plumbing, let's put it over there.

Well, of course, then, along comes an epidemic and you've not been maintaining the infrastructure to respond to it. You don't have enough people, enough protective gear, enough doctors, nurses, the hospitals aren't ready, the school systems aren't ready. You haven't coordinated the police, the Fire Department, all your various agencies.

And so once again, you reinvent the wheel. And there's just no way to ready. No way at all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And in fact, there are budget cuts coming in the U.S. budget for the CDC and other groups. So that makes a very good point there, Laurie Garrett there.

And I should point out that in the meantime, China said Sunday that more than 10,000 people, and this is important too, have actually recovered so far and being discharged from hospitals.

ALLEN: That's a part of the story we need to keep looking at as well of course.

OK, next tier, we turn to Washington after a week of upheaval at the U.S. Justice Department. There are growing calls for Attorney General Bill Barr stepped down.

HOLMES: And Nevada Democrats are lining up for caucuses. What the outcome from a diverse state could mean for the candidates.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:11:23]

GENE NORMAN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Meteorologist Gene Norman here with the look at conditions across North and South America. We're looking at some rain especially in the southern United States, snow further to the north, and even a couple amount of snow flurries in the northern portions of the Rockies.

But here we go, this weather system moving across the middle of the country will bring some rain and snow, from the Great Lakes back down into the Mississippi River Valley.

It's further south though that we're really concerned about the threat for flooding, watching carefully a flood situation developing in Mississippi along the Pearl River as more scattered showers move through.

Not a lot of heavy rain as you can see here on this forecast, however rains from recent days, and recent weeks in fact, are raising those flood fears and the last thing these folks need is more rain.

But they could be seeing a few more showers moving through anywhere from 50 to a couple of pockets of 100 millimeters are expected.

Elsewhere, we're looking at minus 12 (INAUDIBLE) Winnipeg, three in Denver, 26 in Dallas, so a big range in those temperatures.

And once that system moves to the Great Lakes, we're looking at a big drop of temperatures in Chicago getting down to minus five after a little bit of rain and snow mix over the next couple of days.

Across Central America it looks pretty good, although breezy in Managua with 34, 32 in Havana. Not too bad with the typical weather for this time of year.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HOLMES: All right, we're going to show you now the U.S. presidential limousine. There it is. And it's unusually on a racetrack. President Trump and the first lady are taking a lap around the NASCAR Daytona 500 track to kick off the race yesterday.

ALLEN: Probably not going too fast there. HOLMES: No, did not -- did not take part.

ALLEN: Well, Mr. Trump served as the Grand Marshal commanding the drivers to start their engines. He's only the second U.S. president to do so after George W. Bush in 2004.

HOLMES: Yes, but not everything went to plan. The race itself was postponed after 20 laps because of rain. It set to resume, though, on Monday.

ALLEN: All right, let's take you back to Washington, D.C. now. Acquisitions of political interference in the U.S. Justice Department are intensifying in an extraordinary public statement. Former Justice Department officials are calling for Attorney General Bill Barr's resignation.

HOLMES: You know, this comes of course after he intervened in the sentencing of a longtime friend of President Trump. Four prosecutors who are working that case against Roger Stone, he's there on the right of your screen, withdrew from the case after the Justice Department lowered the recommended sentence.

[01:15:07]

Barr has also ordered the reexamination of the case against another Trump ally, former national security adviser Michael Flynn, on the left of your screen. Jeremy Diamond with the details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, a firestorm of controversy is continuing around Attorney General Bill Barr's decision to intervene in that politically sensitive case involving the president's longtime political adviser Roger Stone. Barr taking that extraordinary action to reverse a sentencing recommendation from career prosecutors.

And now, we are seeing more than 1100 career Department of Justice officials, former Justice Department officials, some of them prosecutors career, some of them political appointees, but having served in both Democratic and Republican administrations.

And essentially what they say in this statement is that well it's all well and good for Barr to be coming out in criticizing the president's use of Twitter to talk about some of these cases, putting him in a difficult position. They're saying that ultimately Barr's actions are what really matter.

Here's what they say. Mr. Barr's actions, in viewing the president's personal bidding, unfortunately speak louder than his words. Those actions and the damage they have done to the Department of Justice's reputation for integrity and the rule of law, require Mr. Barr to resign.

Now, the White House for its part has been to couple of days insisting that the relationship between the president and the attorney general is on solid footing, despite Barr's rebuke of the president's use of social media as it relates to the Department of Justice.

What we are also seeing is the White House insisting that the president has confidence in Barr but also a little bit of pushback on what Barr was saying. Here's the vice president's chief of staff Marc Short making that point.

MARC SHORT, CHIEF OF STAFF, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think that it's impossible to do his job. In fact that I think that Attorney General Barr is doing a great job. I think he has a lot of confidence inside the White House.

I think that the president's frustration is one that a lot of Americans have which feels like the scales of justice are not balanced anymore.

There has been a bias was inside the Department of Justice that Attorney General Barr is trying to correct. I think that as he has said that the president has not called him directly to say please, do these things. He has acted independently to initiate these reviews and I think he's doing a fantastic job with it.

DIAMOND: Now, I asked the president on Sunday as he returned to the White House whether he would heed his attorney general's advice in terms of stopping his tweets about the Justice Department and Justice Department cases. The president did not answer my question as he walked back in to the White House.

And the president has already made it quite clear that he has no intention of changing his behavior. In the wake of Barr's comments about the president's use of Twitter as it relates to the Justice Department, the president tweeted that while Barr said that he had not asked him to intervene in any criminal cases at the Justice Department, the president maintained that he has the right to do so.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HOLMES: Well, Democratic presidential candidates are turning to Nevada, the first western state to hold caucuses this Saturday.

ALLEN: Party officials are encouraged by the strong turnout they're seeing in early voting. The chairman said the party has worked around the clock to make sure they don't have the same problems with what we saw in Iowa.

Meantime, the candidates are sharpening their attacks on this man, front runner Bernie Sanders. His supporters are accused of threatening the powerful Culinary Workers Union for not supporting his Medicare for All proposal.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If his supporters are attacking the Culinary Union members, who's responsible for that? JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Look, he may not be responsible

for it, but he has some accountability. If any of my supporters did that, I disowned them, flat disown them.

PETE BUTTIGIEG (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Senator Sanders plan by definition abolishes private plans like what the Culinary Workers and other workers across Nevada in America have, mine does not.

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm the only one on that debate stage when asked, do you have a problem with the socialist leading the Democratic ticket, that I said yes, and that is despite the fact that Bernie and I are friends we came in together.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Meanwhile, while he campaigns in Nevada and draws some big crowds, Bernie Sanders firing back at his opponents. Athena Jones reports.

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there. We're in Carson City, Nevada. This is one of the places where Senator Sanders has been pushing to get out the vote.

Early caucusing here in Nevada began on Saturday and it goes until Tuesday. And so, one of the things the Sanders campaign is hoping for is that his supporters will go straight from a rally like this one here in Carson City and go straight to these early caucusing sites.

Now, I should mention that Bernie Sanders lost Nevada to Hillary Clinton in 2016 but he did very well in the northern part of the state, that's where we are. He won Carson City and he won other northern counties, like Washoe County which is where Reno is, only about half an hour from here.

[01:20:05]

One of the most interesting things we saw from today's rally was to see Senator Sanders going after some of his opponents. We've seen him doing that more and more, drawing contrasts with some of the other people that these voters maybe deciding amongst so.

He attacked Pete Buttigieg, saying that he's raising money from millionaires and billionaires and he also went after Mike Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York for what he called his support for racist policies like stop and frisk. We heard that from Senator Sanders himself and from the current mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio, also slamming Bloomberg, that sparked a lot of boos in the crowd. And it's no accident that Sanders is bringing up an issue like this here in Nevada.

Nevada is the first truly diverse state of the states to vote so far. Of course, Iowa and New Hampshire are largely weight in white state, more than 90 percent white.

Well, Hispanic voters make up about -- or Hispanics make up about 30 percent of the population here in Nevada. And in 2016, Sanders won the Latino vote, he won 53 percent of that

vote.

And so, this is the sort of criticism of an opponent -- of an opponent that could really resonate here in Nevada. Back to you.

HOLMES: And Julian Zelizer joins me now. He's a CNN political analyst and historian and professor at Princeton University. Good to see you, Julian.

We saw the president Sunday at the Daytona 500 motor race, even doing a lap in the armored presidential vehicle. I mean, very much part of his popular stick, playing to the base, but you wrote about how his record suggests that perhaps he is the more radical. Does it suggest that he is with the working men or not?

JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, there's a disconnect between his economic policies and what he claims to provide for the Americans. His policies intended to favor wealthier Americans in terms of tax cuts, he's pushed many deregulations on the workplace that had made the workplace less safe. They're not policies traditionally associated with helping working in middle class Americans. But he still very much presents himself that way and relies on social and cultural issues to try to appeal to those constituencies.

HOLMES: And then so, on the Democratic side, of course, (INAUDIBLE) there's a lot of talk about radical policies by the left, Bernie Sanders in particular. But you know, what is Donald Trump, is he right, if not radical in terms of policy and behavior? Is there an argument that Democrats should fight like with like, and of course Bernie Sanders is polling pretty well?

ZELIZER: Well, yes, the article I wrote argues that the real radical race is Donald Trump. He's very far off from where the center is in American politics on almost every single policy issue and also the way he uses his presidential power, it's radical. It's a really expansive view of power that we have not seen in many years and some Democrats argue that they should embrace their party's tradition. They shouldn't be scared of that tag, meaning, being radical. And Bernie Sanders in their mind is the best answer to Donald Trump and not the riskiest.

HOLMES: Why do poor Americans, specifically white Americans, support Trump so vociferously when so many of his policies actually work against their interest, be it social programs, workplace protections, minimum wage and so on? Why is that?

ZELIZER: Some of it is that economic self-interest is not the only issue and they are motivated by other policies that the president wishes. Policies on immigration for example are very appealing in a lot of red constituencies in this country and so that's part of it.

And part of it is a distrust in this country for both parties. And so, when both parties don't have the respect and admiration of working American, it's easy to appeal to them even if your actual policies don't really benefit their bottom line. HOLMES: I'm talking more about the Democratic field, I mean, Michael

Bloomberg has really raced up the polls lately. But, you know, when you think about it, what about Bloomberg is Democrat given his past positions, yet he joined the party in 2018, advocated against raising the minimum wage, he campaigned for George W. Bush, said the banks weren't responsible for the financial crisis, advocating cuts to social services, the stop and frisk, sexist behavior. What is his appeal to Democrats other than he doesn't like Donald Trump?

ZELIZER: Well, that's the biggest one, and add to that the idea that maybe he's the one who could beat Donald Trump. A lot of Democrats are looking just for that as the answer.

[01:25:02]

There are a few issues where Michael Bloomberg has been pretty liberal, climate change, for example. He's been one of the biggest advocates in terms of donations and advocacy, gun control and even immigrations.

So I think there's enough issues there that some Democrats are willing to sign on to his campaign, especially with this idea that he has a better chance of defeating President Trump because he can appeal to suburban voters than would have Bernie Sanders. I don't know if that's correct but that's the logic of his support.

HOLMES: Interesting. And when it comes to Nevada, and of course, you know, Super Tuesday is just around the corner as well. When you -- when you look at candidates particularly like Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren who's been -- who've been slipping in terms of their own results, what do they need to do to come through?

ZELIZER: They need to do very well. Super Tuesday, which is the day we have many big primaries all happening at once will be a very decisive day.

If Joe Biden does poorly in most of those, and doesn't perform as well as he thought he would in South Carolina for example, that could very much be the end of his candidacy. You could see the dollars dry up, the organization dry up very quickly and that would totally unsettle the Democratic field because he still remains the person everyone is counting on in the Democratic Party to be electable if the party goes that route.

And for Warren not doing well also would be devastating, it wouldn't unsettle the field so much but it would mean probably the end of her candidacy. Both have to collect a certain number of delegates on Super Tuesday to show that they are still viable in this race.

HOLMES: Great analysis as always, Julian Zelizer, thanks so much.

ZELIZER: Thanks for having me.

ALLEN: All right, we're cutting into the third state, then it's Super Tuesday, here we go.

HOLMES: And then another what, 40 something to go?

ALLEN: Yes, exactly. Hang in there with this.

All right, next tier, caught up in a seemingly endless war, we're talking about Syria.

HOLMES: Yes, look at life, hundreds of thousands of civilians. Hundreds of thousands gripped by fighting in the grip of winter.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[01:30:37]

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back, everyone. I'm Michael Holmes.

NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR: I'm Natalie Allen. Let's update you on our top news this hour.

Authorities say another 105 people in mainland China have died of the novel coronavirus. The global toll -- the death toll from the outbreak now at more than 1,700. There are at least 71,000 confirmed cases world wide with the vast majority in mainland China.

HOLMES: Nevada's Democratic Party's hoping the long lines for early voting in the caucuses means a big turnout this coming Saturday. More than 18,000 Democrats came out for the first day of early voting. The party chairman said officials are working to make sure there are no problems like Iowa when it comes to reporting results.

ALLEN: In a rare move, more than 1,100 former U.S. Justice Department officials issued an open letter calling for this man here, the Attorney General's resignation. The statement comes after Bill Barr overruled four prosecutors' sentencing recommendation for President Trump's longtime friend Roger Stone.

HOLMES: Now, the Syrian regime backed by the Russians, of course has intensified its ground and air campaign across the country's last rebel-held territory. Since December nearly 850,000 civilians have been displaced, 80 percent of them women and children, according to the U.N.

ALLEN: It is hard to believe that after all these years people are still caught in the middle and they are still suffering. The head of emergency aid for the U.N. told CNN that if nothing changes, that part of northwestern Syria will have turned into the world's biggest pile of rubble, strewn with the corpses of one million children.

CNN's Arwa Damon is the only western journalist reporting from inside there and her report, we warn, you has disturbing images.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ARWA DAMON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There is barely enough light to see as we head towards Samiya's (ph) tent in one of Idlib's sprawling camps. A couple of nights ago, temperatures dropped well below zero and the family didn't have enough to eat.

"I put my baby and he went to sleep," Samiya tells us still in shock. "At 6:37, the children woke me up screaming. I touched him and he was icy."

The doctors told them he froze to death. Her husband walks out before he breaks down. She does not have a photograph of Abdul Wahab (ph) alive, just this image as they said their final goodbyes.

She can't forgive herself. She can't understand how life can be so cruel. Few people here can.

We have made multiple trips into Idlib province, none like this. Roads throughout the province are clogged with the traffic of those on the run, unending waves.

Many have been displaced multiple times before, but this time it's different. They feel like no matter what they do, they won't be able to outrun the war.

These children walked for seven hours in the middle of the night to get away from the bombing near their village, but it's not far enough.

They want to leave from here but they try to figure out transport or something, because if they try to go walk, it would just be impossible.

Down the road, Dima (ph) and Bathuleh (ph) clutched their stuffed animals for the last time, for theirs is a world where toys are not considered essential, survival is. They don't cry or complain, as they are loaded into the truck.

There is a sense of finality, claustrophobia, compounded by the collective misery of those trapped here with the regime rapidly closing in and emptying out entire areas.

One village settled down among these third century ruins two weeks ago. A little boy shows us a picture in his father's phone of the bombing overnight.

This is Mohammed and he's ten and he said he's very scared last night because this entire area, the hillsides all around it were being bombed.

[01:35:00]

DAMON: They almost took off walking in the dark.

"I would rather die than not be able to protect my children," Sef Edim (ph) vows. He used to be the village's elementary school director. His tent is considered a palace by this wretched existence's standard.

Two of his kids have fallen into the stove. Her face was burned.

His children are too young to know anything but war hardship. "Let Trump get a bit angry and send a couple of tomahawks," Sef Edim says, half joking. For those here know too well that in the world's view they are dispensable. The last nine years have taught them that.

Obei's (ph) tent is perched on a hilltop, away from the countless other makeshift camps.

Our conversation is broken up by warnings from an app he has on his phone about where the planes are flying and bombing. His elderly mother lies in the corner. She's been that way ever since they found out that his brother died in a regime prison. And the regime is getting closer.

This is his brother who was detained in 2012 when he was part of the protests. And then in 2015, they got notification that he was dead. This is the photograph they got of him, dead, in prison.

"All I have is this photo, just this memory," he says, haunted by his pain. "Even if the regime tried to reconcile, it's impossible," he swears, "you can't trust them."

Nothing in this forsaken place is guaranteed. Gone is the schoolyard laughter and crowded classrooms. They have been converted into shelters and smoke-filled living spaces.

But even as new families arrive, some of those here are getting ready to flee again.

Sef Edim who we met at the camp in the ruins sends me a distressing voice message. He's saying that the bombing was all around them overnight and that the aircraft are flying over the camp.

When we arrive, the sounds of the violence closing in echo through the hills. Sef Edim's children are playing in the mud, seemingly oblivious to the encroaching danger or distance (ph).

They've called for a truck, but they're being told that there's no one who can come here, virtually because it's so -- the roads are so crowded and clogged up with other people fleeing.

Those who manage to get transport are packing up. They still cling to a hope that someone something will save them, that the world will realize it can no longer turn away, that they won't be abandoned to desperately search for a lifeline that doesn't exist.

Arwa Damon, CNN -- Idlib province, Syria.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: And to find ways you can help Syrians survive the conflict, head to CNN.com/impact. We have a list of organizations you can donate to.

HOLMES: All right, we're going to take a short break.

When we come back, a plague of biblical proportions. How this year's unprecedented swarm of locusts could threaten the food security of millions in Africa.

[01:38:51]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ALLEN: Well, parts of eastern Africa are seeing the worst invasion of desert locusts in over two decades. They've already devastated crops in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

HOLMES: U.N. officials say that could threaten the food security of millions in the region. CNN's Becky Anderson explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BECKY ANDERSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ravenous and ruthless, locusts have been known and feared by the world's most ancient civilizations, but their biblical infamy is all too real today.

Right now, millions of these insects are sweeping across the farmlands of east Africa. Some reports say there are billions, destroying crops and threatening livelihoods.

For farmers across the region, this is the sound of danger.

ESTHER KITHUKA, FARMER (through translator): We depend a lot on this season, and we worry that the locust will destroy our harvest and we will end up remaining hungry throughout the rest of the year waiting for October when we have the next cropping season.

ANDERSON: This year's locust invasion is so bad that the U.N. is warning of a serious food crisis in Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Somalia. The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization says massive food assistance now maybe needed.

KEITH CRESSMAN, SENIOR LOCUST FORECASTING OFFICER, U.N. FAO: There's already 13 million people in that region that are in acute food insecurity. This is just one level below famine. 75 percent of those people live in areas that are now currently infested with desert locusts.

ANDERSON: Somalia has already declared a national emergency, and the U.N. warns this could become the most devastating plague of locusts in living memory, if the world doesn't step up against the onslaught.

CRESSMAN: We have a very small window in order to achieve this before the next planting season. If we don't get the help that we are appealing for, or for some reason the control operations are not successful, the locusts, they just continue to breed. And between now and June there could be a 400-fold increase of locusts.

ANDERSON: Climate experts are blaming unusual heavy rainfall and cyclones which provide ideal environment for rapid breeding for this year's massive swarms. And with wetter and hotter weather usual forecast until May, they warned the worst is yet to come.

Becky Anderson, CNN. (END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: Well, thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Natalie Allen.

HOLMES: She is.

I'm Michael Holmes.

"WORLD SPORT" coming your way next.

Enjoy the rest of your day.

[01:43:34]

END